She turned toward him, tasting salt where she had bitten the inside of her lip. “Did you believe him?”
“Who, Kenneth?” asked Kincaid, sounding a bit puzzled. “Well, you have to admit, it does make sense of things that-”
“You haven’t met Tommy. Oh, I can believe that Tommy was Matthew’s dad,” she conceded, “but not the rest of it. It’s a cock-and-bull story if I ever-
“Just improbable enough to be true, I’m afraid,” said Kincaid. “And how else could he have found out about Tommy and Matthew? It gives us the missing piece, Gemma-motive. Connor confronted Tommy over dinner that night with what he’d found out, and Tommy killed him to keep him quiet.”
“I don’t believe it,” Gemma said stubbornly, but even as she spoke little slivers of doubt crept into her mind. Tommy loved Caro, and Julia. You could see that. And Gerald he spoke of with respect and affection. Had protecting them been enough reason for murder? But even if she could swallow that premise, the rest still didn’t make sense to her. “Why would Connor have agreed to meet him at the lock?”
“Tommy promised to bring him money.”
Gemma stared blindly at the drizzle that had begun to coat the windscreen. “Somehow I don’t think that Connor wanted money,” she said with quiet certainty. “And that doesn’t explain why Tommy went to London to see Gerald. It can’t have been to establish an alibi, not if Connor was still alive.”
“I think you’re letting your liking for Tommy Godwin affect your judgment, Gemma. No one else has a shred of motive. Surely you can see-”
The anger that had been building in her all morning broke like a flash flood. “You’re the one that’s blind,” she shouted at him. “You’re so besotted with Julia Swann that you won’t consider that she might be implicated in Connor’s death, when you know as well as I do that the husband or wife is most likely to be involved in a spouse’s murder. How can you be sure Trevor Simons isn’t lying to protect her? How do you know she didn’t meet Connor before his dinner with Tommy, before the gallery opening, and arrange to meet him later that night? Maybe she thought a scandal involving her family would damage her career. Maybe she wanted to protect her parents. Maybe…” She ran down, her fury quickly spent, and sat waiting desolately for the inevitable backlash. This time she had really crossed over the line.
But instead of giving her the dressing-down she expected, Kincaid looked away. In the silence that followed she could hear the swishing of tires on the damp pavement, and a faint ticking that seemed to be inside her own head. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said finally. “Perhaps my judgment can’t be trusted. But unless we come up with some concrete physical evidence, it’s all I have to go on with.”
They made the journey back to London in separate cars, meeting again at Kincaid’s flat as they had arranged. The drizzle had followed them, and Kincaid drew the tarp over the Midget before locking it. As he climbed into Gemma’s car he said, “You really must do something about your tires, Gemma. The right rear is as bald as my granddad’s head.” It was an often-repeated nag, and when she didn’t rise to the bait, he sighed and continued, “I rang LB House on the mobile phone. Tommy Godwin didn’t come in today, said he was unwell. Didn’t you say his flat was in Highgate?”
Gemma nodded. “I have the address in my notebook. It’s quite near here, I think.” A formless anxiety settled over her as she drove, and it was with relief that she spotted the block of flats. She left the car in the circular drive and hopped out, jiggling her foot in impatience as she waited for Kincaid to lock his side of the car and catch her up at the building entrance.
“Christ, Gemma, is there a fire no one bothered to tell me about?” he said, but she ignored the barb and pushed through the frosted-glass doors. When they presented their identification to the doorman, he scowled and grudgingly directed them to take the lift to the fourth floor.
“Nice building,” Kincaid said as they rose creakingly in the lift. “It’s been well maintained, but not overly modernized.” The fourth-floor foyer, tiled in a highly polished black-and-white geometric design, bore him out. “Deco, if I’m not mistaken.”
Gemma, searching for the flat number, had only been listening with half an ear. “What?” she asked, knocking at 4C.
“Art Deco. The building must date from between-”
The door swung open and Tommy Godwin regarded them quizzically. “Mike rang me and said the Bill were paying another call. Very disapproving he was, too. I think he must have had unfortunate dealings with the law in a previous existence.” Godwin wore a paisley silk dressing gown and slippers, and his usually immaculate blond hair stood on end. “You must be Superintendent Kincaid,” he said as he ushered them into the flat.
Having assured herself that Tommy hadn’t gone and put his head in the oven or something equally silly, Gemma felt irrationally angry with him for having worried her. She followed slowly behind the men, looking about her. A small, sleek kitchen lay to her left, done in the same black and white as the foyer. To her right, the sitting room carried on the theme, and through its bank of windows she could see a gray London spread before her. All the lines of the furniture were curved, but without fussiness, and the monochromatic color scheme was accented by a collection of pink frosted glass. Gemma found the room restful, and saw that its gentle order fit Tommy like a second suit of clothes.
A Siamese cat posed on a chair beneath the window. Paws tucked under her chest, she regarded them with unblinking sapphire eyes.
“You’re quite right, Superintendent,” Tommy said as she joined them, “these flats were built in the early thirties, and they were the ultimate in advanced design for their day. They’ve held up remarkably well, unlike most of the postwar monstrosities. Sit down, please,” he added as he seated himself in a fan-shaped chair that complemented the swirling design on his dressing gown. “Although I must say, I think it must have been a bit nerve-racking during the war, as high above the city as we are. You’d have felt like a sitting duck when the German bombers came over. A chink in the blackout and-”
“Tommy,” Gemma interrupted severely, “they said at LB House that you weren’t well. What is it?”
He ran a hand through his hair, and in the clear gray light Gemma saw the skin beginning to pouch a little under his eyes. “Just a bit under the weather, Sergeant. I must admit that yesterday rather took its toll.” He stood and went to the drinks cabinet against the wall. “Will you have a little sherry? It’s appropriately near lunchtime, and I’m sure Rory Allyn always accepted a sherry when he was interrogating suspects.”
“Tommy, this isn’t a detective novel, for heaven’s sake,” said Gemma, unable to contain her exasperation.
He turned to look at her, sherry decanter poised in one hand. “I know, my dear. But it’s my way of whistling in the dark.” The gentleness of his tone told her that he acknowledged her concern and was touched by it.
“I won’t refuse a small one,” said Kincaid, and Tommy placed three glasses and the decanter on a small cocktail tray. The glasses were sensuously scalloped in the same delicate frosted pink as the fluted lampshades and vases Gemma had already noticed, and when she tasted the sherry it seemed to dissolve on her tongue like butter.
“After all,” said Tommy as he filled his own glass and returned to his chair, “if I’m to take the blame for a crime I didn’t commit, I might as well do it with good grace.”
“Yesterday you told me you’d been to Clapham to visit your sister.” Gemma paused to lick a trace of sherry from her lip, then went on more slowly. “You didn’t tell me about Kenneth.”
“Ah.” Tommy leaned against the chair back and closed his eyes. The light etched lines of exhaustion around his mouth and nose, delineated the pulse ticking in his throat. Gemma wondered why she hadn’t seen the gray mixed in with the gold at his temples. “Would you admit to Kenneth, given a choice?” Tommy said, without moving. “No, don’t answer that.” He opened his eyes and gave Gemma a valiant attempt at a smile. “I take it you’ve met him?”